Anti-Slavery March. And, has McCain had his chips?

Yesterday, a handful of protesters began a march from Hull to London. It is to mark the bicentennial of the abolishment of slavery, by William Wilberforce, Hull's most famous son. Whilst I agree that slavery is man's inhumanity towards man, I have a couple of issues. One of the people on the march told BBC Look North, that she was saying sorry for what had happened and that by going on this march she was putting right a historical wrong. I don't believe that saying sorry 200 years later, and going on a march eradicates this black mark in our history books. More recently, a million marched against the invasion of Iraq and it had no affect on the government.

I was slightly bemused to hear that Senator McCain had said sorry for stating that America had wasted the lives of its soldiers in Iraq, and that what he should have said was that they had sacrificed their lives. I cannot see anything wrong with stating that these lives were wasted, given that it is an illegal war. It is an unnecessary waste of lives. I cannot see how changing the term to sacrifice alters anything. It just made me think about leading lambs to the slaughter, sacrificial lambs.

The anti-slavery marchers are missing a vital point. In effect, slavery is still going on in Hull and the surrounding areas. I am referring to the grip that the Russian/Latvian Mafia has on Eastern Europeans migrants, who are paying to work and are not being paid for weeks at a time by firms such as M.H. Poskitt Ltd, in Goole. I am aware that DEFRA is investigating Poskitt's, however, as I understand it this is only in relation to the use of unsafe machinery. I would like to see these marchers picketing Poskitt's to bring public awareness to what is happening in our own backyard.